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Inside Politics

Democrats Mobilize to Challenge Trump's Agenda; White House Plans Sweeping Layoffs in Federal Government; Trump Immigration Agenda Stirs Fear Among Workers in Nebraska. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 05, 2025 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00]

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND BLOOMBERG POLITICAL AND POLICY COLUMNIST: The problem now is those ordinary citizens are deflated, defeated, exhausted, and they are just looking to people like Chuck Schumer, who also seems a little exhausted, to lead them during this resistance. And it's obviously happening in fits and starts.

I reached out to a Democratic strategist and I said, how do you think it's going with the Democrats? And she said, it's like hopscotch versus Grand Theft Auto. And I think that's what we're seeing, a real sort of -- I mean criminality is obviously not what's going on in -- from the Trump White House.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Well --

HENDERSON: But there is -- there is --

BASH: Maybe not criminality.

HENDERSON: There's a level of corruption.

BASH: But the question is more about the Constitution.

HENDERSON: Yes, exactly.

BASH: Which, you know, is no small thing. I want you to jump in, but I want --

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: Because I was good at hopscotch? Fair.

(LAUGH)

BASH: I mean, obviously, I would expect nothing less of you, Hans. Chris Murphy, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, he has been trying, listen to what he said this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D-CT): This is a moment in which we've got to engage in very, very simple and strong terms about what is happening, side by side with being a true opposition party in the Senate, using our tools to make life difficult for complicit Republicans, and then going out there and leading a public engagement, which is I think the next step that we have to do. Don't just fight on the inside, go fight on the outside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLS: Look, Democrats don't know if they want to be Republicans. Well, they don't know if they'll be Republicans in 2010 where you had a tea party movement that led to a backlash and restored them to power, and effectively halted Barack Obama's administration, his White House, or if they'll be Republicans in 1933, and they're fighting what could be an emerging new deal.

And you look at the speed and the scope at which Donald Trump is acting, and it's not a perfect analogy, but they are modernizing and doing things -- modernizing is their word -- that's on a scope and scale of the new deal. And if you were a 1933 Republican, you felt pretty impotent and pretty powerless in the face of FDR and everything they were doing.

And people forget, FDR could have gone the other way, right? He could have failed at the new deal and been rebuked by voters in the 34 midterms, in the same way that Obama was rebuked in 2010. Now, with all this bad historical analogy, I yield myself to Stephen to just --

(LAUGH)

NICHOLS: -- eviscerate and destroy it because he is actually really good at Grant Theft Auto.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well --

BASH: Are you?

(LAUGH)

COLLINSON: I mean, FDR was stopped because of the court.

NICHOLS: Court, right.

COLLINSON: And Trump has the court.

NICHOLS: But, the new deal is successful.

COLLINSON: Right. True. I think the problem Democrats have is that they get themselves into this position of defending the government that many Americans feel has let them down. And that's not a very good political argument. Last week, it was easy when the freeze on the spending happened and government started to full -- to crash down and services that people rely on were not happening, that was a much easier mistake to make.

So if all of these Trump reforms and gutting government and they start to have results, then Democrats will have something to seize on. But this is all kind of theoretical in many ways.

BASH: Well, let's just -- I just want to say that, first of all, we have seen a lot of people online saying do something and we never see, at least in my time, we rarely see staffers of lawmakers speaking out for themselves. They're usually speaking out on behalf of their bosses. But this really caught our attention.

Aaron Fritschner, who is a Chief of Staff to Don Beyer, who's a member from -- a Democratic member from Northern Virginia. He said, it is easy to write, 'do something' on the internet. It is much harder for electeds who are out of power and have low influence or ability to affect change, to do stuff that will make people happy, catharsis, and help people solve the problem, effective. Consider those two terms as separate forms of response.

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, this -- oh, this is Don Bacon?

BASH: No, this is -- this is staffer or Don Beyer.

HENDERSON: Don Beyer?

BASH: Democrat.

HENDERSON: Listen, I think Democrats are in a tough position. I mean, you talked about this, they were obviously walloped in the midterms. It's not clear what Democrat -- actual voters and citizens want. Do they go and defend USAID? This idea of foreign investment has been pilloried for years in the country. Do they go after Elon Musk? Somebody who's, I guess, his approval rating as I think right below 40 percent. It's sort of where Biden's was as he was on his way out.

BASH: Yes.

HENDERSON: And obviously, Donald Trump has a strategy to flood the zone (ph), to destabilize everyone from Democrats to reporters, to ordinary citizens. And so, I'm not sure what Democrats can do. There is some sense that they're kind of getting it together. You see some of that this week. Hakeem Jeffries for instance, trying to sort of meddle in that New York special election to delay it. So you see some of that, but it's taking some time.

BASH: As we go to break, just because you mentioned Elon Musk --

HENDERSON: Yes.

BASH: Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, definitely a frontline Democrat, said, I've been getting a lot of calls over the past few days and the interesting thing is none of them are about Donald Trump. They're all about Elon Musk. My constituents and a majority of this country put Trump in the White House, not this unelected weirdo billionaire.

[12:35:00]

We're going to take a quick break. Up next, she was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6th. It cost her, her job. What is her advice to GOP lawmakers who are still on Capitol Hill, but a step back from any effort to reign Donald Trump in?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: The great concession, Republican lawmakers are largely sitting on the sidelines as the White House takes a wrecking ball to the federal government.

[12:40:00]

The latest, CNN has learned the Trump Administration is preparing sweeping layoffs among the federal workforce if they don't take Elon Musk's so-called buyout offer. Plus, CNN has learned that offer has now been extended to every employee at the CIA, every employee at the CIA. And more havoc at the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Nearly all employees will be put on leave and staffers overseas have been ordered to return to the United States.

Congress, which is supposed to control the nation's purse strings, seems kind of OK with that. Here's a quote, that runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense. That's from Senator Thom Tillis. He was telling that to notice, but it's not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending. Joining me now is former Republican Congressman Jaime Herrera Beutler. Thank you so much for being here. It's really nice to see you.

I was so eager to talk to you for lots of reasons, not the least of which is you were one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection. You faced his wrath and the wrath of MAGA. You ultimately did not win your primary bid for re-election. Given that deep understanding of what happens when somebody goes against him and against the Republican base, help our viewers understand perhaps why your old colleagues are sitting back.

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, so I would take this a little bit from -- I served on appropriations and when I came into Congress, right, it was the tea party wave, and there was a lot of conversation about things like earmarks and not wanting to have them. And I remember at the time thinking, no, we're three separately elect -- like separate branches. The founders set us up that way. And no administration really ever polices itself.

But if we are not willing or -- this is what I thought at times, what I still think, to exert our authority to protect the legislative branch, it -- this will flow back and forth depending on who owns the White House. It's wet cement, whatever you do now, the next administration and the next administration is going to do in excess. And I think we've seen that.

BASH: So given that, as you watch your former colleagues not push back and not exert control as the founders --

BEUTLER: Yes. BASH: -- laid it out in the constitution.

BEUTLER: Yes, they did.

BASH: How -- how are you, like what's your view on that?

BEUTLER: You know, I do think some of this is going to have to -- the courts are the ones who are going to have to -- they're going to be working through some of this. But I do -- this is -- the rubber is going to meet the road here soon. I understand on an agency level, when it's not been specified, there's gray area and the executive has more control over the staffing, for lack of a better way to say it.

But when you're talking about laws that were written, this is where Congress needs to step up. Congress holds the purse strings for a reason. Like the founders wanted them to be accountable specifically in the House every two years, right?

BASH: But they're not.

BEUTLER: Well, I do think there's a bit of, I don't want to say it's sudden, but a bit of the frog -- Congress is kind of the frog in the pot right now and it's really hot --

(LAUGH)

BEUTLER: And no -- no trifecta. And I've witnessed this. I've served under the last three presidents. When you one party has all -- the whole -- the whole thing, nobody tends to like to stand up to their own team. Nobody tends to like to point out the obvious. It -- I do believe Congress will and needs to. I think you don't have to -- part of it is, you need to love your job so much that you're going to do it.

BASH: One of the things --

BEUTLER: Which means letting it go.

BASH: I was talking to somebody who has worked for Donald Trump for years and years and years, including, and especially during the first term, who said one of the things that we learned from the first term was, these are my words, not his, but effectively, don't play it by the rules. Don't wait. You got to go in and you got to go in fast.

BEUTLER: Yes.

BASH: And because things like the courts --

BEUTLER: Yes.

BASH: It takes years.

BEUTLER: It's true.

BASH: They'll all be -- they'll be done.

BEUTLER: Here's the thing with that --

BASH: If you were there right now, what would you be doing as an appropriator?

BEUTLER: Oh, I would be -- I would be doing what I did at different times, which was this is our prerogative. I was a big fan of congressionally directed spending, also known as earmarks, because it meant, at that time, that the Obama Administration couldn't take the money we directed and spend it elsewhere. It meant that it had to be done the way we believed in it. And I would be speaking up and I do know that there are folks speaking up within the conference.

Here's the thing though, for everybody on Capitol Hill, if they really want to enact efficiency and really like true change, you can't do it on whims, you can't do it on EOs because it will change. If you want any semblance of longevity or permanency, you have to work it through the Congress. You have to do the work.

[12:45:00]

BASH: What's your view on -- what's your view of Elon Musk doing all of this and the 19 to 24 year olds --

BEUTLER: Yeah.

BASH: -- who are storming every one of these agencies, taking over?

BEUTLER: I -- so I have a little bit of a mixed review. On one hand, I love the idea of disruption and I think the bureaucracy is ripe for it. I had my sensitive personal information and that of my family shared by some of the last administrations. It was exposed to contractors. It was put on the dark web, China got it. So on one hand, I'm kind of like, well, that happens.

But I think if they want lasting change, if they really want to disrupt for like the real deal, want to make America great, they need to work it through the Congress because the next administration, it'll probably cost more. Right? The next administration will come in, and if it's a Democrat one, maybe they'll rebuild up U.S.A. It will cost twice as much.

BASH: Yes.

BEUTLER: So if they want lasting change, they have to work with Congress.

BASH: Former Congressman Jaime Herrera Beutler, so good to see you. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.

Coming up, cornhusker concerns. John King is "All Over the Map" in a ruby red state where many fear Donald Trump's immigration plans could hurt their bottom line. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:30] BASH: In deep red Nebraska, you would probably expect many of President Trump's policies to be celebrated, but what happens when those policies threaten the state's main industry? CNN's Chief National Correspondent, John King, returned to the Cornhusker State to explore how Donald Trump's hard-line immigration stance could impact the agricultural giant.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Nebraska Prairie, it's calm and quiet as the rolling farmlands wait out winter.

CROWD: This is what community looks like.

KING (voice-over): But even here, the new Trump agenda stirs passion and fear.

CROWD: Lower hate.

KING (voice-over): Immigrant workers are critical in a state where cattle outnumber people by more than three to one. Nebraska is second to Texas in U.S. beef production, sixth in pork, and its 'Cornhusker State' nickname celebrates its role as an agriculture giant.

JOHN HANSEN, PRESIDENT, NEBRASKA FARMERS UNION: If we have a hitch in the get along in Nebraska, it's a big enough processing state. It's going to be felt in the food chain.

KING (voice-over): By hitch in the get along, Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen means the Trump immigration cracked down that rounds up undocumented workers.

HANSEN: Do we need better enforcement? I think we do. There's a constructive way to do it and there's a lesser constructive way to do it. And so, it remains to be seen how we proceed.

KING (voice-over): This is a red state and its Republican governor is offering support if the Trump White House puts Nebraska on its immigration crackdown list. Fear is the word you hear most from immigrants, even those with legal status.

GIN, NEBRASKA RESIDENT: His first term was more of like, let's see if this can happen. This year is more, I'm going to do it.

They go to school --

KING (voice-over): Gin has a green card now and is working towards citizenship, but he has family and friends who are undocumented, and he asked that we not use his full name.

GIN: It's a scary time for my community, for people I care for, are basically are not lucky enough like I am.

KING (voice-over): Rumors of ICE activity spread fast, as did word that agents can now enter schools and churches. GIN: It starts off people getting scared. Basically it starts off like, have you seen immigration? Have you seen this? And you see the fear in people's eyes, just the fact that they can't go out to the store, they can't go get groceries or even hospitals. It is just a hard time.

KING (voice-over): Immigrant advocates like Mary Choate say clients are worried now about sending their children to school or showing up for English classes and other services.

MARY CHOATE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR LEGAL IMMIGRATION ASSISTANCE: We really want to keep immigrants and refugees involved in the community because they're so integral to our community, but it's been very difficult for them to be able to do that because they fear going outside of their homes.

G, ASYLUM SEEKER: [Foreign Language] Honduras, Central America.

KING (voice-over): "G" is seeking asylum. She was a journalist back home in Honduras, targeted by the government, she says after reports detailing corruption.

G (through translator): If I go back to Honduras, they will kill me.

KING (voice-over): She entered the States a year ago, using a Biden Administration phone app that Trump eliminated on day one.

KING: Your lawyers tell you you're in the asylum process and you should be OK, but with Trump as president, are you worried?

G (through translator): Of course, for sure.

KING: Why?

G (through translator): Because he tries to implement quite strict policies with immigrants in general. And I think even more with people who have just entered the country. At least with the program I entered with, there is some instability, so to speak. So of course, that increases anxiety and concern.

With Trump's arrival, I have felt very unstable. I have a lot of anxiety. I suffer from insomnia and I cannot stop thinking about the possibility of being deported. I cannot go back.

KING (voice-over): Nebraska State Senator Kathleen Kauth is pushing a new e-verify law that requires employers to certify their workers are legal. Simple and common sense, she says, but Kauth concedes the polarized national debate might make it harder to win over Democrats.

SEN. KATHLEEN KAUTH, (R-NE): I'm really more worried about Nebraska and focusing on what do we need in Nebraska to understand the problem, how do we make sure that we are keeping people who are not here legally from taking jobs from people who are here.

KING (voice-over): Kauth believes the state can handle any workforce disruption caused by stronger enforcement. And she is a state example of the Trump effect on the Republican Party. Any path to status or citizenship for those already here illegally must start with going home.

[12:55:00]

KAUTH: I kind of view it as a poison apple from the poison tree, whatever the legal definition is. If your first act is to break the law, you have become a criminal. And so therefore, everything after, even if it's well-intentioned, even if it's wonderful, please go back and go through the process because we do want you here, but we need you to do it the right way. And I don't think that that should ever change.

KING (voice-over): Go back is the driving theme of the new Republican immigration push and a big reason more immigrants think it's best to stay in the shadows.

John King, CNN, Lincoln, Nebraska.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Such a terrific piece. Thank you, John. And thank you for joining "Inside Politics" today. "CNN News Central" starts after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)